In a letter dated June 19, 2012, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) urged Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to stop referring to Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” on the I-94 immigration document.

The issue was brought to the attention of FAPA by one of its New York members whose Taiwanese family crossed the border into the US from Canada at Niagara Falls, and was shocked to receive an I-94 card referring to Taiwan as “China (Taiwan).”

Earlier, in a letter dated April 30, 2012, Rep. Howard Berman had written to California Secretary of State Debra L. Bowen, urging her to correct the voter registration system in California which referred to Taiwan as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Within a week the state of California fixed the problem enabling Taiwanese Americans to list their country of birth as “Taiwan”.

Before that, in 1994, Rep. Berman was the primary force behind legislation allowing for Taiwanese Americans to list “Taiwan” in their American passports instead of “China.”

FAPA President Mark Kao says: “We Taiwanese Americans are very grateful to Congressman Berman for carrying the flag with respect to Taiwan’s name rectification. Taiwan is Taiwan. And Taiwan’s sovereignty is not an issue with which one can play politics.“

Kao continues: “Certain departments within DHS indeed refer to Taiwan as ‘Taiwan’ – others don’t. We urge the DHS to be consistent and refer to Taiwan simply as ‘Taiwan’ in all their systems. After all, this is in line with the DHS’s own guidelines.“